If bees keep dying off at this rate, we are going to be facing a horrific agricultural crisis very rapidly in the United States. Last winter, 31 percent of all U.S. bee colonies were wiped out. The year before that it was 21 percent. These colony losses are being described as “catastrophic” by those in the industry, and nobody is quite sure how to fix the problem.

Some are blaming the bee deaths on pesticides, others are blaming parasites and others are blaming cell phones. But no matter what is causing these deaths, if it doesn’t stop we will all soon notice the effects at the supermarket.

Bees pollinate about a hundred different crops in the United States, and if the bees disappear nobody is quite sure how we will be able to continue to grow many of those crops. This emerging crisis does not get a lot of attention from the mainstream media, but if we continue to lose 30 percent of our bees every year it is going to have a cataclysmic effect on our food supply.

The frightening thing is that the bee deaths appear to be accelerating and they appear to be even worse in the UK and Canada:

This past winter was one of the worst on record for bees. In the U.S., beekeepers lost 31 percent of their colonies, compared to a loss of 21 percent the previous winter. In Canada, the Canadian Honey Council reports an annual loss of 35 percent of honey bee colonies in the last three years. In Britain, the Bee Farmers’ Association says its members lost roughly half their colonies over the winter.

“It has been absolutely catastrophic,” said Margaret Ginman, who is general secretary of the Bee Farmers’ Association. “This has been one of the worst years in living memory.”

Scientists have been scrambling to figure out what is causing this, and one study that was recently conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland and the U.S. Department of Agriculture may have some answers:

The study, published July 24 in the online journal PLOS ONE, is the first analysis of real-world conditions encountered by honey bees as their hives pollinate a wide range of crops, from apples to watermelons.

The researchers collected pollen from honey bee hives in fields from Delaware to Maine. They analyzed the samples to find out which flowering plants were the bees’ main pollen sources and what agricultural chemicals were commingled with the pollen. The researchers fed the pesticide-laden pollen samples to healthy bees, which were then tested for their ability to resist infection with Nosema ceranae – a parasite of adult honey bees that has been linked to a lethal phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.

On average, the pollen samples contained 9 different agricultural chemicals, including fungicides, insecticides, herbicides and miticides. Sublethal levels of multiple agricultural chemicals were present in every sample, with one sample containing 21 different pesticides. Pesticides found most frequently in the bees’ pollen were the fungicide chlorothalonil, used on apples and other crops, and the insecticide fluvalinate, used by beekeepers to control Varroa mites, common honey bee pests.

The particular parasite mentioned above, Nosema ceranae, is extremely destructive to honeybees, and this study found that some pesticides and fungicides make it much more likely that bees will become infected by these parasites…

When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.

Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples.

“There’s growing evidence that fungicides may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals,” Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the study’s lead author, told Quartz.

So are these pesticides and fungicides the cause of Colony Collapse disorder?

The authors of the study stated very clearly that they were not making that conclusion.

But it does seem more than coincidental that continental Europe is not seeing bees die in the same kinds of numbers and they have banned many of these pesticides and fungicides. The following is from a recent article by Christina Sarich…

A study by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has labeled one pesticide, called clothianidin, as completely unacceptable for use, and banned it from use entirely.

Meanwhile, the U.S. uses the same pesticide on more than a third of its crops – nearly 143 million acres. Two more pesticides linked to bee death are imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam. These are also used extensively in the US, while elsewhere, they have been taken out of circulation.

There are others that are not entirely convinced that pesticides and fungicides are the primary cause of the mass bee deaths that we are seeing. In some cases, tens of millions of bees are dying all at once. How could that be caused by pesticides and fungicides? The following is from a recent article by Arjun Walia…

It’s not just the United States, Elmwood, Canada also recently reported a discovery of over 30 million dead bees. The massive bee deaths in Elmwood came shortly after approximately 50 thousand bees were found dead in an Oregon parking lot.

No matter what the true cause is, we need to find a solution quickly because if we start running out of honey bees we will rapidly be facing a nightmarish agricultural apocalypse.

Just check out the following list of crops that are pollinated by honey bees…

If massive bee die-offs are not enough, neonicotinoid pesticides are causing millions of bat deaths and are contributing to many other wildlife declines. Researchers conducted an in-depth review of existing literature and report their findings in the Journal of Environmental Immunology and Toxicology.

Strong correlations are found in the rise of neonicotinoid pesticides and Colony Collapse Disorder, as well as plummeting wildlife populations in areas where the chemicals are heavily used. Outbreaks of infectious diseases in many wildlife populations, including fish, amphibians, bats, and birds, coincide on a temporal and geographic scale with the emerging use of the pesticides. Non-target insects are also being wiped out, depriving wildlife of a food source.

How could this new class of pesticide have such a devastating effect on so many types of wildlife? Neonicotinoid pesticides are designed to disrupt the central nervous system. While very effective on pests, they are not specific to pests and appear to work on all animal life forms from invertebrates to mammals. In the case of honey bees, for example, the neurotoxins can kill them outright or cause “sublethal” effects such as disrupting their ability to forage.

The researchers hypothesize that neonicotinoid pesticides have another sublethal effect by damaging the immune system of a variety of wildlife, making them more susceptible to infectious disease outbreaks that correlate with use of the pesticide. This is thought to be a contributing factor in the bees’ inability to ward off the Varrea mite that is a factor in Colony Collapse Disorder. Even after treatment for the mite, honey bees still cannot fight off the mites enough to prevent collapse.

Is this the new DDT?

Unlike some other biocides, neonicotinoids are persistent in the environment, meaning that they do not break down quickly. These pesticides are typically applied to crop seeds. The chemical is ingested into the plant and travels to the growing shoots and flowers, where it is toxic to anything that eats any part of it. Honey bees take toxic pollen back to their hives where it wreaks havoc. The chemicals are also applied as a soil treatment. When it rains, the chemicals get washed into aquatic ecosystems.

Here is where it damages amphibians and other aquatic organisms. New and devastating pathogens were discovered in frog species after the emergence of neonicotinoids. Another study found that exposure to low but constant concentrations of the pesticides has lethal effects on freshwater invertebrates. Experiments on native freshwater shrimps found that this type of exposure impaired their mobility and feeding behavior, leading to slow starvation. Invertebrates are critical links in aquatic ecosystems.

In 2012 it was reported that 6.7 million bats died in the U.S. due to a new pathogen called White Nose Syndrome. This fungal virus began decimating bat populations as the use of neonicotinoid pesticides ramped up in the early and mid-2000s. Bats feed on insects, and exposure to small cumulative doses of the chemicals reduces bats’ immune response, thereby leaving them susceptible to White Nose Syndrome.

Something so “effective” in the chemical agriculture system, as neonicotinoid pesticides are, is bound to have negative repercussions in the environment. The motivation is profit, and there is no profit in being concerned for wildlife. Producing chemical solutions and genetically-engineered, patented crops is the obsession of Bayer CropScience and its cohorts in the industry. And the U.S. government is a willing co-conspirator. While Europe has enacted a ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, the U.S. plows on as if nothing is wrong.